Because I Said So

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I don't think a writer knows what he/she is talking about. Once, I critiqued a writer and accused her of not understanding Hong Kong geography because of the way she'd written a scene. I'd been to Hong Kong and therefore of course I was an expert. Another time, I accused a writer of not understanding that the French eat lunch later in the day than we Americans. I'd been to Paris. So I knew. And I was recently reading Sandra Tsing Loh's "Mother on Fire" and wondering why on earth she thought readers would want to read her ramblings on preschool worries.

In this way, I remind myself of my teenagers. They of course know everything, and parents know very little.

I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not the only know-it-all-reader. I've had readers question passages in my own writing too. But it's not just questions of fact, like whether or not I really know how tall Denali is, or whether I'm accurate in stating what time the sun rises in Talkeetna in mid-May. It's questions like "Are you sure you chose the right narrator?" or "Shouldn't you have written this in scene?" or "Why didn't the character react in a different, more appropriate way?"

I hate questions like that because they're hard. Sometimes I know exactly why I've made a particular choice in my writing, but sometimes it comes subconsciously or subliminally or whatever. It's just something I've done, and I don't really want to have to answer those questions. It takes the fun out of writing. But then again the hard questions are the ones that push me to become a better writer. Grumpier maybe, but better, the same way the challenges from my teens theoretically make me a grumpier but better parent because they force me to really think through my decisions.

But not always. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I might not have a good answer and I don't want to deal with any more questions. I swore I'd never say "because I said so" to my kids, but in fact I have said that on more than one occasion. And sometimes it's that way with my writing too. "Because I said so. Because I'm the writer. And that makes me the expert. Period." Maybe I should be able to justify my choices better, but I'm tired. Worn down. Just want to move on. So there you have it. My word is final.

Readers, and teens too, usually have the best of intentions when they ask questions. But they don't always know it all. A writer friend of mine reminds me of this over and over. She's got the confidence to take what her readers say, mull it over, and then move on. I wonder if she does this with her kids too, although her kids are just becoming teens.  She's got a long way to go.

Now, back to those other writers. While I really didn't think Loh's trials and tribulations of her preschool children were book worthy, somebody obviously did. Her publisher for example. And the NY Times reviewer. And the NPR reviewer, too, to name a few. And yes, I'd been to Hong Kong and Paris for one week each, and had learned a fair bit about their geographies and culinary cultures, but guess what? Those writers I questioned, as it turned out, had actually lived in those places. In the end, I think most of us writers, like parents, know what we're talking about after all. We just don't always know how to show it.